Critical Geographies of Green Hydrogen Transitions

Green hydrogen has been touted as “the holy grail of decarbonization” (Scita et al. 2020) due to its perceived versatility and promise as a viable alternative for difficult to decarbonize sectors, including shipping, trucking, aviation, iron and steel, and chemicals. Despite such optimism, many green hydrogen projects have recently failed. Beyond technical analysis in engineering and economics disciplines, geographers ask pertinent questions about where energy transitions will be located and what they entail. Attuned to the messiness of transitions and their contestations in specific circumstances, geographers are increasingly scrutinizing green hydrogen strategies, projects, and spatial imaginaries, using diverse sub‐disciplinary perspectives. This paper reviews such work, identifying three overarching themes: material politics (encompassing land and water conflict, infrastructures, sociotechnical problems, and spatially‐targeted “fixes” for hydrogen investment); political‐economic geographies (capital and finance, state derisking, the recasting of colonial extractivism); and social and cultural geographies (place identities, household practices, fuel poverty and energy injustice). Geographical perspectives on green hydrogen transitions thus reveal how accompanying societal, industrial, and environmental relations and structures are challenged. Future research directions include analysis of speculations and failures; different forms of state‐capitalism (e.g., extra‐territorial friendshoring, strategic coupling, domestic project underwriting); and what geographies of regional industry and lived experience may ultimately materialize.